Nonintercourse Act

The Nonintercourse Act appears as a federal restriction on acquiring Indigenous land, condemned by timber interests as an impediment to expansion. Its brief mention exposes a larger conflict in the novel: law may formally recognize limits on dispossession, while settlers and companies seek ways to make Indigenous claims ineffective in practice.

The Act and the Timber Business

During a discussion of the Duke company’s costs, Edward Duke lists timberland purchases and the payments needed to secure them, especially when dealing in what he calls “Indian lands.” He complains that Congress tries to prevent those acquisitions through the Nonintercourse Act. The reference frames the law from the perspective of a company eager to obtain land: it is presented as a troublesome barrier, not as a protection for the people whose land is at stake.

The passage places that complaint among the many expenses of large-scale logging. Edward also cites the costs of feeding oxen, employing drivers, surveying land, and maintaining mills and equipment. The legal restriction is thus drawn into the company’s accounting: Indigenous territory becomes a potential timber asset, and the rule constraining its acquisition is treated as one more business cost.

Property Claims and Colonial Practice

Elsewhere, the novel shows how competing property systems shape the consequences of law. In New France, Monsieur Trépagny explains that river-to-forest strips provide settlers with fertile farmland, high ground, and timber. The arrangement is described as equitable, but its premise is that settlers will clear and subdue the forest. Mari’s practical knowledge of eels and gardens, by contrast, reflects a relationship to the land that does not depend on converting forest into titled farms.

The conflict over René Sel’s property makes the gap between recorded title and lived kinship explicit. Démon Meillard insists that René and Renardette were French, declares Renardette the rightful owner, and denies that René’s children with Mari can have a claim. He appeals to Captain Bouchard’s ledger as proof that the sale to Jean Mague will be legal, while Achille points out that the same record shows René married Mari under white law. Legal documentation is not neutral in this dispute: the ledger can support the family’s connection to the property, yet the officials and settlers select the parts of the record that serve an exclusionary claim.

Law, Land, and Exclusion

The later logging company’s response to the Nonintercourse Act sharpens this pattern. The company relies on federal land programs and intermediaries to assemble vast timber holdings, using fraudulent claims and nominal settlers to secure land cheaply. The narrative describes timber acquisition not simply as a matter of formal permission but as a system of brokers, bribery, and claims manufactured to satisfy legal appearances. The Act’s stated restriction therefore exists alongside practices designed to expand corporate control over land.

Across these episodes, legal language and actual power do not align neatly. Settlers celebrate improvement and recorded ownership, while Indigenous claims are dismissed as illegitimate or treated as obstacles. The Nonintercourse Act’s significance lies in this tension: it marks a legal limit on land acquisition, but the novel’s wider history shows how commercial ambition and colonial institutions can circumvent protections or determine whose rights are recognized at all.